Responsible Conduct of Human Subjects Research in Islamic Communities

• Main Authors: Al-Khatib, A. (Author), Kalichman, M. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Netherlands 2019
• Subjects: Arab; Arabs; Beneficence; Biomedical Research; California; cultural anthropology; Culture; curriculum; Curriculum; Developing Countries; developing country; education; Education, Professional; ethics; Ethics Committees, Research; Ethics, Research; human; human experiment; Human Experimentation; Human subjects research; Humans; international cooperation; International Cooperation; Islam; Jordan; Justice; language; Language; medical research; methodology; personnel; Pluralistic societies; problem solving; Problem Solving; procedures; professional standard; religion; Religion and Medicine; Research Design; research ethics; Research Personnel; research subject; Research Subjects; Respect for persons; Universities; university; vocational education
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 In order to increase understanding of the ethical implications of biomedical, behavioral and clinical research, the Fogarty International Center, part of the United States National Institutes of Health, established an International Research Ethics Education and Curriculum Development Award (R25) to support programs in low- and middle-income countries. To develop research ethics expertise in Jordan, the University of California San Diego fellowship program in collaboration with Jordan University of Science and Technology provides courses that enable participants to develop skills in varied research ethics topics, including research with human subjects. The program provides a master’s level curriculum, including practicum experiences. In this article we describe a practicum project to modify an existing introduction to human subjects research for a US audience to be linguistically and culturally appropriate to Arabic-speaking-Islamic communities. We also highlight key differences that guided the conversion of an English version to one that is in Arabic. And finally, as Institutional Review Boards follow the ethical principles of the Belmont Report in evaluating and approving biomedical and behavioral human subjects research proposals, we provide observations on the conformity of the three ethical principles of the Belmont Report with Islam. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V.